Daily postings from the Keystone State Education Coalition now
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administrators, legislators, legislative and congressional staffers, Governor's
staff, current/former PA Secretaries of Education, Wolf education transition
team members, Superintendents, PTO/PTA officers, parent advocates, teacher
leaders, business leaders, faith-based organizations, labor organizations,
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These daily emails are archived and searchable at http://keystonestateeducationcoalition.org
Follow us on Twitter at @lfeinberg
Keystone State Education Coalition
PA Ed Policy Roundup March 5, 2016:
S&P: Budget impasse could lower PA's ratings (again)
Campaign for Fair Education Funding
Pennsylvania has the largest funding gap between wealthy and poor
schools of any other state in the country.
State funding in recent years has not kept pace with necessary school
costs.
Schools are excessively dependent on local wealth for funding. In fact,
the state's contribution to education funding is only 36%, among the lowest in
the U.S.
"It's
astonishing," activist Eric
Epstein of Rock the
Capital told Owens.
"I think it's arrogant. I think it's above the pale that you would
reimburse yourself, in addition to your salary, for not getting the job
done."
No budget? No problem -
lawmakers still billed $$ millions in travel expenses, report: Friday Morning
Coffee
Penn Live By John L. Micek |
jmicek@pennlive.com Email the author | Follow on Twitter on
March 04, 2016 at 8:10 AM, updated March 04, 2016 at 8:11 AM
Good Friday
Morning, Fellow Seekers.
Even as members of Pennsylvania's 253-member General Assembly whined and kvetched last year about the pain of the 2015 budget impasse and castigated Gov. Tom Wolf for runaway spending, they were still billing taxpayers for millions of dollars in food and lodging expenses. As our pal Dennis Owens of ABC-27 reports, the 203-member state House billed taxpayers $2.15 million in per-diem payments last year. The 50-member Senate collected a comparably modest $247,829, the station reported, citing documents obtained through a Right-to-Know Law request. To refresh your memory, lawmakers who live more than 50 miles from Harrisburg can bill the taxpayers for food and lodging expenses while they're about legislative business. The expenses are unvouchered, meaning they don't have to cough up the receipts the average cubicle drone would have to produce for accounting to justify their travel spending. The payments came even as nonprofits sweated keeping their doors open and school districts borrowed hundreds of millions of dollars to continue operation. At least one activist is crying foul.
Even as members of Pennsylvania's 253-member General Assembly whined and kvetched last year about the pain of the 2015 budget impasse and castigated Gov. Tom Wolf for runaway spending, they were still billing taxpayers for millions of dollars in food and lodging expenses. As our pal Dennis Owens of ABC-27 reports, the 203-member state House billed taxpayers $2.15 million in per-diem payments last year. The 50-member Senate collected a comparably modest $247,829, the station reported, citing documents obtained through a Right-to-Know Law request. To refresh your memory, lawmakers who live more than 50 miles from Harrisburg can bill the taxpayers for food and lodging expenses while they're about legislative business. The expenses are unvouchered, meaning they don't have to cough up the receipts the average cubicle drone would have to produce for accounting to justify their travel spending. The payments came even as nonprofits sweated keeping their doors open and school districts borrowed hundreds of millions of dollars to continue operation. At least one activist is crying foul.
State budget crisis forces some midstate schools to
halt most hiring, cut expenses
WITF Written
by Ben
Allen, General Assignment Reporter | Mar 4, 2016 10:51 AM
(Lancaster) -- The state budget crisis isn't
actually fully resolved.
Some school
districts across the midstate are still waiting on tens of millions in state
dollars. At the School District of
Lancaster, they're expecting more than $40 million. But Matt Przywara, its finance chief, says
until then, "we have instituted a budget freeze with our school district
in order to conserve some money this year, because we don't know what we're
going to get." Governor Tom Wolf
signed a budget, but line item vetoed billions in education funding to try to
bring Republicans back to negotiate the final pieces. That hasn't happened. Przywara says in Lancaster, the impact is
very real. "Nonessential employees
are not being hired. Even essential vacancies like for classroom teachers,
we're just not filling some of those positions right now." Przywara fears this year's crisis may never
be resolved, meaning impacts will stretch into next year.
Pa. budget impasse's
impact on school funding bemoaned
Herald Mail Media By Roxann Miller Posted: Friday, March 4, 2016 6:45 pm | Updated: 8:44 pm, Fri Mar 4, 2016.
GREENCASTLE, Pa. —
With the Pennsylvania budget eight months overdue and no solution in sight, the
impasse was the main topic of discussion Thursday during a town hall meeting
with state Sen. John H. Eichelberger Jr.
“The budget is confusing, and it doesn’t look like we’re making a lot of
progress right now,” Eichelberger told about 40 people gathered at the Lilian
S. Besore Memorial Library in Greencastle.
Billions of dollars for schools, prisons and hospitals hang in the
balance over a financial push and pull between Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf and the
Republican-controlled Legislature. The
meeting was so important to Greencastle-Antrim School Board members that the
start time of their regular meeting Thursday was delayed an hour and a half
until 7:30 p.m. so members could attend.
Midstate lawmakers rally
against Gov. Tom Wolf's budget plan with proposed $2.7 billion in new taxes
Penn Live By Charles Thompson |
cthompson@pennlive.com Email the author | Follow on Twitter on
March 04, 2016 at 6:10 PM, updated March 04, 2016 at 6:17 PM
HAMPDEN TWP. - If
Gov. Tom Wolf hopes to rebuild the bipartisan coalition that almost delivered a compromise state budget proposal to
Pennsylvania in December, lawmakers from the midstate sent this signal Friday: Better start looking for Republican votes in
other parts of the state. Because to a person,
eight House members from Cumberland, Dauphin, York, Adams, Lancaster and
Lebanon counties said Friday, they are not interested in raising the personal
income tax from 3.07 percent to 3.4 percent.
Or most other pieces of the governor's $2.7 billion tax increase package.
"The CreditWatch action
reflects our view that a failure to pass a budget package for fiscal 2016 that
addresses long-term structural balance could exacerbate the state's projected
structural budget gap for fiscal 2017," S&P analyst Carol Spain said
in a statement.”
UPDATE 1-Budget impasse could lower Pennsylvania's
ratings -S&P
(Adds S&P warning of downgrade, background
on budget impasse, quote from S&P analyst)
Reuters March 3,
2016
Standard and Poor's
Ratings Services warned on Thursday it could downgrade Pennsylvania's AA-minus
general obligation and other ratings by the end of March if the state's
structural budget imbalance is not addressed.
The credit rating agency placed the ratings on a watch list as a budget
impasse continues between Democratic Governor Tom Wolf and Republicans who
control the legislature, leaving the state without a complete spending plan for
the fiscal year that began July 1.
Because of budget
stalemate, S&P threatens to downgrade Pa.'s credit rating
Inquirer by Joseph N. DiStefano @PhillyJoeD Updated: MARCH 4, 2016 — 5:00 PM
EST
Pennsylvania is
racing New Jersey to the bottom as Standard & Poor's considers another
reduction in the Keystone State's credit rating.
S&P has
threatened to cut Pennsylvania's AA- rating for general obligation debt by one
or more notches. In a report to clients this week, the agency cited the state's
"failure to pass a budget package for fiscal 2016 that addresses long-term
structural balance - financial-analyst code for the state's seeming inability
to agree on boosting its cash reserves or lining up pension-fund income with
the relatively generous checks paid to hundreds of thousands of retirees. Only Illinois, New
Jersey and Kentucky have lower S&P credit ratings, while California's and
Michigan's ratings are the same as Pennsylvania's current rate, according to
S&P. Low-rated borrowers
typically have to pay bond buyers and other lenders extra, because they are
considered a little more likely to default on their debts.
Indeed, Pennsylvania
taxpayers had to pay investors an extra 0.52 percent interest to sell bonds as
of last month, more than any state except New Jersey and Illinois, according to
a report by PNC Financial Services Group. Those bond premiums closely track
state ratings posted by S&P's rival, Moody's Investors Services.
Share Your PA Budget Impact Story
PSBA website March 2, 2016
The Impact of the Budget Impasse: Share your
story
School
superintendents leaving the field in 'unprecedented numbers'
Trib Live BY ELIZABETH
BEHRMAN | Friday, March 4, 2016, 11:10 p.m.
Nancy Hines'
schedule is often packed with board meetings, staff meetings and disciplinary
hearings. As superintendent of the Penn
Hills School District, she's tasked with helping it rebound from two years of
budget deficits. But proposals to raise property taxes, cut courses and eliminate
teacher positions haven't won over Penn Hills residents or the teachers union.
After one year as
head of the district, she describes her job as “being close to the firing
line.”
“You're trying to
hold everybody together, but on the same side of that, we have to be willing to
be the bad guy,” said Hines, who makes $140,000 a year. School superintendents are leaving the field
in “unprecedented numbers,” cracking under the fiscal and political pressure
and buckling under additional responsibilities placed on them as school
districts cut administrative staff, according to a 2014 study from the
Pennsylvania Association of School Administrators. On average, superintendents
in Pennsylvania spend about three years in the post, the study said.
“(Broad) His foundation
has pumped $144 million into charter
schools across the country, is embroiled in a battle to expand
the number of charters in his home city, and has issued a handbook on
how to close troubled public schools.
Unique among the education philanthropists, his foundation has also
contributed more than $60 million over 15 years to a nonprofit that trains
superintendents and administrators, convinced that they are key to transforming
urban school systems.”
“Broad-trained
superintendents currently run districts in two dozen communities, including
Boston, Broward County, Fla., and Philadelphia. They have lasted an average of
four and three-quarter years, delivering incremental academic progress at best.
Like others in the field, they have run up against the complexities of trying
to improve schools bedeviled by poverty, racial disparities, unequal funding
and contentious local politics.”
Oakland
District at Heart of Drive to Transform Urban Schools
New York Times By MOTOKO RICH MARCH 4, 2016
OAKLAND, Calif. —
The 70 teachers who showed up to a school board meeting here recently in
matching green and black T-shirts paraded in a circle, chanting, “Charter
schools are not public schools!” and accusing the superintendent of doing the
bidding of “a corporate oligarchy.” The superintendent,
Antwan Wilson, who is an imposing 6-foot-4, favors crisp suits and Kangol caps
and peers intensely through wire-rimmed glasses, has become accustomed to
confrontation since he arrived in this activist community from Denver two years
ago. One board meeting last fall reached such a fever pitch that police
officers moved in to control the crowd. Mr.
Wilson is facing a rebellion by teachers and some parents against his plan to
allow families to use a single form to apply to any of the city’s 86
district-run schools or 44 charter campuses, all of which are competing for a
shrinking number of students. How he
fares may say a great deal not only about Oakland, but also about this moment
in the drive to transform urban school districts. Many of them have become
rivalrous amalgams of traditional public schools and charters, which are
publicly funded but privately operated and have been promoted by education
philanthropists.
4 elementaries added to
Philly district schools slated for intervention
WHYY Newsworks BY KEVIN MCCORRY MARCH 4, 2016
The School District
of Philadelphia is planning massive interventions in 16 of its schools next
year. In addition to the 12 schools
already organized in its "Turnaround Network," the district has
selected four more schools for intervention where drastic staffing changes
could be on the horizon: Theodore Roosevelt Elementary, E.W. Rhodes Elementary,
S. Weir Mitchell Elementary, and Luis Munoz-Marin Elementary. The district isn't planning to formally
announce the details of its plans until Thursday, but officials confirmed the
names of the targeted schools — though they warned that plans could change in
the next week. Spokesman Fernando
Gallard said the turnaround attempts would come with additional financial
investments, but would not provide specifics.
The schools in the Turnaround Network are those that were tapped as
"Promise Academies" under former superintendent Arlene Ackerman. In
that intervention model, schools were initially given added resources, and
staff received extra pay to work longer hours and some Saturdays. The district recognized that those turnaround
attempts faltered after
the first year as budget woes undermined the effort for a plethora of reasons.
KENNEY'S BIG, BOLD IDEA$
Philly Daily News Opinion Updated: MARCH 4, 2016 — 3:01 AM EST
YOU CAN'T accuse
Mayor Kenney of thinking small. In his first budget address to City Council,
the mayor said that what the city needed were "serious, radical, ambitious
policies." And he delivered lots of them.
The two likely to get mentioned the most are Kenney's call for the city
to spend $60 million a year in providing slots for quality pre-K, at about
$8,500 per child. It would, for the
first time, put the city in the business of providing subsidies for early
childhood education, supplementing the $237 million in annual subsidies now
given to poor parents by the state and federal government. The second, and surely the most controversial,
is a plan to generate funds by imposing a 3-cents-an-ounce tax on sugary
drinks, not only soda but also non-carbonated drinks, such as iced tea and
sports drinks. A 3-cent tax on a 20-ounce drink equals 60 cents.
Kenney has already
incurred the wrath of the "soda lobby," the bottlers of major brands,
plus the unionized drivers who deliver them. Those groups ganged up on Mayor
Nutter's earlier plan for a 2-cent-an-ounce tax and defeated it in City
Council. Councilman Kenney voted against that tax.
Socolar: I say goodbye,
you say hello
The notebook by Paul Socolar March 4,
2016
Today is a day my
colleagues and I started preparing for more than a year ago.
I’m leaving
the staff of the Notebook after 16 years as editor and
publisher to explore new job opportunities. I feel sad about saying goodbye to
the wonderful community that surrounds the Notebook and the
complex and fascinating issues in the Philadelphia schools. But I am ready for
a change, and so is the Notebook – we’ll both be trying on some
new ideas and approaches. And I’m excited to
be handing over the reins to a talented new leader, Maria
Archangelo, who has returned to Philadelphia to join our team as the Notebook’s
publisher and executive director.
Maria is a
Philadelphia native and Temple grad who got her start in journalism at the
Inquirer. Her newspaper career has taken her to Baltimore and more recently to
Vermont, where she made her mark as an editor and publisher. Maria shares
the Notebook’s passionate concern about the future of our city and
a deep commitment to the Notebook’s core values of social justice,
educational equity, democracy, and community empowerment.
Ed. Department Names ESSA
Negotiators, Key Areas of Discussion
Education Week
Politics K-12 By Alyson Klein on March 4,
2016 3:00 PM
By Alyson Klein
and Andrew Ujifusa
UPDATED Get ready, get set: Negotiate rules for the
Every Student Succeeds Act!
Later this month, a
group of negotiators (names below) will gather at the U.S. Department of
Education to hash out regulations for certain parts of the newest version of
the Elementary and Secondary Act. ESSA requires the department to go
through the "negotiated rulemaking" process on three sections of the
law—standards, assessments, and supplement-not-supplant, which deals with how
states and districts spend their own funds in relation to federal
money. The department is starting with assessment and
supplement-not-supplant.
How does
negotiated rulemaking work? The
folks listed below essentially get together in a room and try to hammer out an
agreement with the department. If the process fails, which it often does, the
feds go back to the drawing board and negotiate through the regular process, which
involves releasing a draft rule, getting comments on it, and then putting out a
final rule.
Who is on the
committee?
See below for the
list of those who are on the committee and their organizational affiliations:
U.S. Department of Education announces ESSA Rulemaking
Committee-Important next step in ESSA implementation
NSBA website on
March 4, 2016 Charlotte
Blane
The U.S. Department
of Education (Department of Education) today announced negotiators for
the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) Negotiated Rulemaking Committee. The
committee will draft and negotiate regulations which will be published in the
Notice of Proposed Rulemaking for public comment. The National School Boards Association (NSBA)
will continue to work to shape ESSA’s implementation, and will be present at
the meetings, closely monitoring the developments going forward to bring the
collective perspective of 90,000 school board members to the negotiating process,
ensuring that every child has an equal opportunity for a first class education.
The committee’s
public meetings are scheduled for March 21-23 and April 6-8—with an optional
third session from April 18-19. More
information on the rulemaking process is available in the Department of
Education' s newly released
documents.
- See more at: https://www.nsba.org/newsroom/us-department-education-announces-essa-rulemaking-committee-important-next-step-essa#sthash.FD2fbz71.dpuf
“Resistance against
corporate education reform”: Noam Chomsky, scholars warn Senate not to approve
John King as secretary
Leading teachers and public education
activists warn Obama's choice for education secretary would be a disaster
Salon.com by BEN NORTON March 4, 2016
Leading progressive
voices are warning that President Obama’s choice for education secretary could
be a disaster. An open letter to the
U.S. Senate, published in the Washington Post on Thursday, asks
lawmakers to reject the confirmation of John King as the new secretary of
education. King, the acting secretary of
education, has a long history of supporting corporate-friendly education
reforms, and has pushed for unpopular policies like more standardized testing
and Common Core, which critics say are ineffective. The letter is signed by world-renowned
scholar Noam Chomsky, along with journalist Naomi Klein, Chicago Teachers Union
president Karen Lewis, Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein and a
host of other prominent scholars and activists, including some of the most
established pro-public education voices.
A variety of teachers’ and public education organizations signed the
letter as well, including New York for Public Education, Save Our Schools
and Time Out From Testing. The
signatories warn King’s policies “have been ineffective and destructive to
schools, educators, and most importantly students.”
Testing Students’ True Grit
New York Times Room
for Debate UPDATED MARCH 4, 2016 4:39 AM
INTRODUCTION - Jade Cooney reviews good behaviors with her
fifth-grade students at Visitacion Valley Elementary School in San
Francisco.Elizabeth D. Herman for The New York Times More and more schools are pushing to measure
students’ social-emotional skills, like empathy and perseverance. The trend
— which has raised concerns even among proponents of teaching resilience,
or grit — is taking on greater urgency with federal education laws
requiring at least one nonacademic assessment to judge school performance.
Should public
schools be testing children for these social-emotional skills?
Everyone Loves the Idea of Preschool, So Why Don't All
Our Kids Get to Go to One?
What the
studies say about early childhood education.
Mother Jones By Kristina Rizga | Fri Mar. 4, 2016 1:28 PM EST
It's hard to think
of another education reform idea that has garnered as muchsupport among advocates of various ideological stripes
as early childhood education. California and New York liberals support it, and
so do conservatives in Oklahoma and Florida. A 2015 national poll showed that 76 percent of voters support the idea
of spending federal money to expand public preschool, and the new federal Every
Student Succeeds Act includes more funding for early childhood. Helping the idea
along is decades of research (which continues to pour in) that suggests effective
preschools can benefit all children, especially those from
disadvantaged backgrounds. "We have better evidence that preschool works
and has long-term effects than we do for any other social policy," David
L. Kirp, one of our country's leading experts on early childhood education
and a professor of public policy at the University of California-Berkeley,
told Mother Jones. But can
we identify what a good preschool looks like and make that accessible to the
kids most in need? That topic has been debated fiercely by parents, preschool
advocates, and policymakers all over the country. This week, early childhood
education experts and city chiefs of preschools came together in Sacramento, California, to talk about
the latest research. As presenter Abbie Lieberman, an early-education
policy analyst at New America, put it: "When we step into a preschool, how
can we tell what is actually learning through play and what is true
chaos?"
PASBO 61st Annual
Conference and Exhibits March 8 - 11, 2016
Hershey Lodge and Convention Center, Hershey, Pennsylvania
Hershey Lodge and Convention Center, Hershey, Pennsylvania
PA Legislature Joint public hearing-on
Federal Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) March 14
PA House
and Senate Education Committees
03/14/2016 10:30 AM Hearing
Room #1 North Office Bldg
PSBA
Advocacy Forum & Day on the Hill
APR 4, 2016 • 9:00
AM - 5:30 PM
Join
PSBA and your fellow school directors for the third annual Advocacy Forum on
April 4, 2016, at the State Capitol in Harrisburg. This year’s event will have
a spotlight on public education highlighting school districts’ exemplary
student programs. Hear from legislators on how advocacy makes a difference in
the legislative process and the importance of public education advocacy.
Government Affairs will take a deeper dive into the legislative priorities and
will provide tips on how to be an effective public education advocate. There
will be dedicated time for you and your fellow advocates to hit the halls to
meet with your legislators on public education. This is your chance to share
the importance of policy supporting public education and make your voice heard
on the Hill. Online advanced registration will close on April 1, 4 p.m. On-site
registrants are welcome.
Pennsylvania Association of School Administrators
(PASA) 2016 Education Congress April 6-7,
2016
professional
development program for school administrators
Focus: "The
Myths of Creativity: The Truth about How Innovative Companies Generate Great
Ideas" Featured Presenter: Dr.
David Burkus
April 6-7, 2016 Radisson
Hotel Harrisburg in Camp Hill
The program will
focus on how school leaders can develop and utilize creativity in education
management, operations, curriculum and leadership goals. The second day will
allow participants to select from multiple discussion/work sessions focusing on
concepts presented by Dr. Burkus and facilitated by school leaders who have
demonstrated success in creative thinking and leadership in schools across the
commonwealth.
Deadline for
hotel accommodations: March 15
See the PASA website
for more information at: www.pasa-net.org/2016edcongress.
PenSPRA's Annual Symposium, Friday
April 8th in Shippensburg, PA
PenSPRA,
or the Pennsylvania School Public Relations Association, has developed a
powerhouse line-up of speakers and topics for a captivating day of professional
development in Shippensburg on April 8th. Learn to master data to
defeat your critics, use stories to clarify your district's brand and take
your social media efforts to the next level with a better understanding of
metrics and the newest trends. Join us the evening before the
Symposium for a “Conversation with Colleagues” from 5 – 6
pm followed by a Networking Social Cocktail Hour from 6 – 8 pm.
Both the Symposium Friday and the social events on
Thursday evening will be held at the Shippensburg University Conference
Center. Snacks at the social hour, and Friday’s breakfast and lunch is
included in your registration cost. $125 for PenSPRA members and $150 for
non-members. Learn more about our speakers and topics and register today at
this link:
The Network for Public Education 3rd
Annual National Conference April 16-17, 2016 Raleigh, North Carolina.
The
Network for Public Education is thrilled to announce the location for our 3rd
Annual National Conference. On April 16 and 17, 2016 public education advocates
from across the country will gather in Raleigh, North Carolina. We chose Raleigh to highlight the tremendous
activist movement that is flourishing in North Carolina. No one exemplifies
that movement better than the Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II, who will be the
conference keynote speaker. Rev. Barber is the current president of
the North Carolina State Conference of the NAACP, the National NAACP chair of
the Legislative Political Action Committee, and the founder of Moral Mondays.
2016 PA Educational
Leadership Summit July 24-26 State College
Summit Sponsors:
PA Principals Association - PA Association of School Administrators
- PA Association of Middle Level Educators - PA Association of
Supervision and Curriculum Development
The 2016
Educational Leadership Summit, co-sponsored by four leading Pennsylvania education associations,
provides an excellent opportunity for school district administrative teams and
instructional leaders to learn, share and plan together at a quality venue in
"Happy Valley."
Featuring Grant
Lichtman, author of EdJourney: A Roadmap to the Future of Education,
Secretary of Education Pedro Rivera (invited), and Dana
Lightman, author of POWER Optimism: Enjoy the Life You Have...
Create the Success You Want, keynote speakers, high quality breakout
sessions, table talks on hot topics and district team planning and job alike
sessions provides practical ideas that can be immediately reviewed and
discussed at the summit before returning back to your district. Register and pay by April 30, 2016 for the
discounted "early bird" registration rate:
Interested in letting our
elected leadership know your thoughts on education funding, a severance tax,
property taxes and the budget?
Governor Tom Wolf,
(717) 787-2500
Speaker of the
House Rep. Mike Turzai, (717) 772-9943
House Majority Leader Rep. Dave Reed, (717) 705-7173
Senate President Pro Tempore Sen. Joe Scarnati, (717) 787-7084
Senate Majority Leader Sen. Jake Corman, (717) 787-1377
House Majority Leader Rep. Dave Reed, (717) 705-7173
Senate President Pro Tempore Sen. Joe Scarnati, (717) 787-7084
Senate Majority Leader Sen. Jake Corman, (717) 787-1377
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